


You Do It Or You Die

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Guilt, M/M, Religion, Suicidal Thoughts, not actually that sad lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 14:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16494005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: David was tired of playing dead.





	You Do It Or You Die

David was not a religious man, but he had missed this.

The light, the ritual, the formless air of hope suffusing every part of the night. The music. God, the music especially. That was what he had loved best about synagogue since he was very small.

Sarah won’t come with him any more. Not yet, at least. She needs – time, she calls it, she needs _time_ , but David thinks what she means is space. She’d prayed a lot, while he was gone. While he was dead. To find him alive, that her prayers for him had been answered in some desperate, horrifying way – to learn that he had lived but _suffered_ – it felt like God had looked at her and like some demented genie had answered a wish as violently as possible. David understood, kind of.

Usually, David is alone when he comes here. Sometimes Leo comes with him. Once, Zach. He doesn’t mind being alone. He thought he would, after getting them back, but sometimes, alone is better. Safer.

He sits silently, mouthing along to prayers he finds he still remembers, childhood wonder coming back to him in pieces, while the feeling of not yet being _worthy_ of those words simmered in his chest.

There was hate in his heart, and anger. A man with a bloody mind ought not talk to God.

Frank is gone. Frank is long gone, but in a hospital uptown, Billy Russo lies in recovery, every day closer to the one where he’ll wake up. David thinks about going there, finding some hole in their security, getting to him. Killing him, like Frank should have.

A man with a bloody mind should not talk to God.

People come to this synagogue from all over. There’s a lot of visitors to the city who chose this as a place to worship, coming once and then never again. The regulars all have their spots, and David is starting to recognize people – people are recognizing him. He’s not sure how he feels about that. Threatened, relieved. Frightened, pleased. Too many contradictions, he’s –

The regulars seem to understand that he needs space right now. They nod at him, smile and wave, but no one tries to sit with him, to the side, keeping to the fringes of acceptable distance – never far enough away to be creepy, but still apart. He knows how to go unnoticed; it’s a habit, an art. It helps because he has these moments, these bursts, where everything is too bright and it’s hard to breathe, where he’s drowning in the open, suffocating in the presence of too many people.

 _It’s easy, there’s a trick to it, you do it or you die_.

He thinks about a book he read, read it because Leo was reading it and he read whatever she read. He thought it was a little heavy for a kid her age, but he also thought that made her braver for her interest in it, her delight. He liked the part where the man was on the tree, holding vigil for a man who’d played him. It satisfied him, made him feel something like empathy.

 _There’s a trick to it, you do it or you die_.

It helps him steady his breathing, keeps him in his seat as he relaxes. He’s fine, really, it’s just a lot sometimes. The loneliness in the presence of so many.

 _You do it or you die_.

Did they hold vigil for him? Did they sit shiva? Did they cover the mirrors, did Sarah hide her leather shoes?

They’d never been overly religious, but loss cried out for order. Loss pushed you from some things and pulled you to others. Often, one fell back into old rhythms, and they’d both grown up in houses steeped in Jewish tradition. He wonders. He doesn’t know, doesn’t think he’ll ever ask. How does one ask, _did you process your grief for me? Did it rock you so hard you fled to a childhood custom to guide you through it?_

How does one say, _I mourned you too._

How does one say, _I died, when you saw me fall, I died because I saw part of you die and that was me, that was all because of me, you suffered, and grieved, and ached, because of me, and I got to sit back and watch you do it, I got to survive on the sidelines while you drowned in agony, and it was all my fault. So much blood on my hands._

Sometimes, it’s not Billy Russo David thinks about killing.

A man with a bloody mind cannot talk to God.

The regulars know to let him sit off to the side and observe, to mouth along to the songs he knows and watch vividly as the rabbi speaks.

Sometimes, though, strangers will sit near him. A family, once, who told him after, as he was heading to leave, that they hoped he would feel less lonely. Like they saw it on him, his own Mark of Cain, and sought to defy it.

Today, it’s a lone man. The stranger has a limp and wears heavy boots, a combination that snags something in David’s mind before the man sits beside him. He’s thick and covered in not one coat but two, the hood drawn up. David almost tells him it’s inappropriate, wearing a hood here, but he doesn’t want to talk and the service is about to start. He focuses to the front, hoping they’ll start with a song. He likes the music best.

A hand falls over his, light, hesitant; rough and thick-skinned, calloused and familiar. David doesn’t _need_ to look to know it’s Frank, but he does. He does, not knowing if he’ll punch him or kiss him or burst into tears, every option utterly inappropriate, but their eyes lock, Frank’s so steady and so warm, so scared, that David can only smile gently. And then he looks forward again; in his peripheral he sees Frank do the same.

The hand on his own doesn’t move, and David’s mind buzzes with an odd sort of white noise. The rabbi’s voice is lyrical, light and lilting, and David feels lighter than he has in so long. He feels something tight and ugly in his chest loosen, giving him room to breathe.

Frank has been gone for so long David had given up, finally, trying to text him. They’d never been answered, not even one, but when David called, just once, the phone had still been in service. David wondered if Frank carried it on him or if it was left behind somewhere, unnecessary, abandoned. David wondered if Frank set it down one day and walked away from it, left it someplace he’d called home and forgot about it.

Frank doesn’t try to speak during the service. He seems to understand the sanctity of this place, not just in general but as David’s refuge of choice. David feels beautifully empty as he listens to the songs, the sermon; he feels accepting and understanding of the way most things are, at their core, so simple.

It’s people who make them complicated.

When the service is over, David will take Frank home with him. It’s a long drive in city traffic, and they could use the time to talk, but they probably won’t. There are things that need to be said, but they’ll get around to it eventually. That blister isn’t quite ready to burst yet.

He will bring Frank home, and he will take him inside, and they will go to Sarah. They will take Frank to bed. Whatever has brought Frank back to them can wait until morning.

It’s an easy thing, to accept that. Any other option would be like dying, and suddenly, David doesn’t want that. Thinks, maybe, he _deserves_ to live. Deserves to feel this thing blossoming around his ribs and at the base of his skull, this inability to stop smiling.

He mouths along to the songs, and at some point his voice finds him again. They’re halfway through a verse and he lets his voice join the rest, a familiar melody, sweet on his lips. He feels Frank’s eyes on him, all that lethal potential focused in on watching him, and feels like his heart will burst with the knowledge that Frank came back to _him_.

He can’t look at Frank, not while they’re here, facing the ark. If he looks at Frank again, he’ll lose control.

A man with a bloody mind can’t talk to God. But that doesn’t mean God ignores a bloody-minded man.

Sometimes prayers are answered. With violence, with horror; with kind, gentle assurance that everything will get better. David doesn’t know if what he’s been doing has been praying, but he never gave up on seeing Frank, even if the man never answered his texts, never even read them. It couldn’t be over; it simply couldn’t.

_You do it or you die._

David was tired of playing dead. Maybe Frank was too.

Maybe, going home from this, they could come alive together.


End file.
